CHAPTER XXIV

The three men—­Peter Dale, Abraham Weavel
and Graveling filed into the room a little solemnly.
Maraton shook hands with the two former, but Graveling,
who kept his head turned away from Julia, affected
not to notice Maraton’s friendly overtures.

“Seven hundred,” Maraton replied.
“Not so bad, considering. You see, I was
a complete stranger and I am not sure that I have learnt
the knack yet of that sort of platform speaking.”

“However that may be,” Abraham Weavel
declared, accepting a cigar from the box which Maraton
had ordered, and standing with his hands underneath
his coat-tails upon the hearthrug, “you’ve
done the trick. You’re an M.P., same as
we are.”

“You’ve no objection, I hope?” Maraton
remarked lightly.

“That’s as may be,” Mr. Weavel observed
sententiously. “We don’t, so to speak,
know exactly where we are just at this moment.
There’s all sorts of rumours going about, and
we want them cleared up. Go on, Dale, ask him
the first question. You’re spokesman, you
know.”

Mr. Peter Dale threw away the match with which he
had just lit his pipe, sampled the whiskey and water
to which he had helped himself with a most liberal
hand, and deliberately selected the most comfortable
chair within reach. With his hands in his trousers
pockets, the thumbs protruding, his pipe in the left-hand
corner of his mouth, his eyebrows drawn close together,
he looked steadfastly towards Maraton.

“The first question,” he began stolidly,
“is this. You owe your seat in Parliament
to the Unionists. What have you promised them
in return? You haven’t attempted to commit
us to anything, I hope?”

“Certainly not,” Maraton replied.
“Such an idea never occurred to me. So
far as I know,” he went on, after a moment’s
hesitation, “Mr. Foley is not, at the moment,
in need of your support. His majority is sufficient.”

Peter Dale frowned ominously.

“That may or may not be,” he remarked
gruffly. “So long as you haven’t
taken it upon yourself to pledge us to anything, well,
that disposes of question number one. The next
is, where are you going to sit in the House?”

Maraton’s eyebrows were slightly raised.

“Where am I going to sit?” he repeated.
“Remember, if you please, that as a member I
have never been inside your House of Commons.
I am not acquainted with its procedure. Where,
in your opinion, ought I to sit?”

“Your place is with us,” Peter Dale declared.
“I can’t see that there’s any doubt
about that.”